This blog describes Metatime in the Posthuman experience, drawn from Sir Isaac Newton's secret work on the future end of times, a tract in which he described Histories of Things to Come. His hidden papers on the occult were auctioned to two private buyers in 1936 at Sotheby's, but were not available for public research until the 1990s.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Freedom. Today, one of the world's most powerful nations celebrates freedom and independence. It is no coincidence that the scientists at CERN in Switzerland chose today to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, the so-called 'God particle,' in the Large Hadron Collider. The press conference (here and here) started live at 2 a.m EST.

In the United States, Fermilab's Tevatron collider was closed on 30 September 2011, after scant funding from the Obama administration. This is ironic, since the Tevatron lies outside Chicago. Although the Tevatron's discoveries contributed greatly to the understanding of particle physics, credit for finding the final part of the Standard Model goes to Europe. In the strain of competition, Tevatron's scientists announced more of their final results on 2 July 2012 (see reports here and here). They did not find the Higgs boson particle, but they got closer to it. American physicists will rejoice at this discovery in the name of their science. But in the name of their country, this is a disappointment for big American physics. It is therefore all the more ironic that CERN is announcing findings on 4 July. You can see popularly-renowned American physicist Brian Greene discuss the importance of this discovery and the post-Higgs world here (Hat tip: Spaceports).

For years, the Higgs particle has been a maddening hypothesis essential to proving the Standard Model. Today's experimental results placed the Higgs boson right on the line between the theoretical and the real. You can see a video of a 2011 CERN ATLAS proton collision here; ATLAS is one of two teams at CERN which have searched for independent confirmation of the Higgs particle. The other is CMS.

In the past week, the elusive particle's experimental confirmation was surrounded by blogging, rumours and leaks. BBC comments on how huge this discovery is:

A confirmation would be one of the biggest scientific discoveries of the century; the hunt for the Higgs has been compared by some physicists to the Apollo programme that reached the Moon in the 1960s.

Perhaps today's announcement is bigger than the moon landing. The Higgs particle delves into the fascinating mystery of the Big Bang. The particle emerged out of the imagination and mathematics, has entered confirmed reality, and now invites more abstractions. The discovery paves the way for another hypothesis, in effect opens the Pandora's Box of Supersymmetry (see here).

And if the wildest promises of that Pandora's Box are true, this particle will open doors to new human pathways to understanding - a freedom and independence, if you will, from ignorance about the universe. The Standard Model might be resolved using Supersymmetry to conclude a Theory of Everything, a theory which eluded Albert Einstein.

Supersymmetry gives every last element of reality - from the tiniest sub-particle to the universe itself - a shadowy twin, a Doppelgänger. If the Higgs particle's discovery one day confirms this incredible hypothesis, it will serve as history's greatest metaphorical mirror. Supersymmetry could initiate a new era in human history, in which we can contemplate other dimensions, multiverses, and time travel as realities, not as mere speculations in science fiction.

But it just so happens that Doppelgänger and twin aspects giving way to triple worlds are extremely popular at the turn of the Millennium. In other words, scientific discoveries shape culture as much as they grow out of culture.

Aerial view drawn to show the underground path of the Large Hadron Collider beneath the French-Swiss border. Image Source: Daily Mail.

The problems of Dark Matter and of cheap limitless energy may be answered here, and initiate unprecedented global growth. The God Particle brings humankind to the onset of a new age, and allows us to glimpse a broader reality in which our modes of life, philosophy and spirituality will be revolutionized.

And that is the tricky bit. Once a genie is out of its bottle, it can be difficult to anticipate and control. One of the big themes of the new Millennium is the overlap of science and the arts and humanities, whether intended or not, whether real or imagined. Physicists really dislike the popular name the 'God particle.'

The particle's popular nickname may be portentous. The Higgs particle could confirm physicists' wildest theories. Radical Shiftwarns that huge scientific discoveries are easily mobilized in the name of completely unrelated ideas and situations; that blogger points to the troubling correlation between incredible 2003 sequencing of the human genome and the misapplication of consequent attitudes to financial practices. Understanding how and why scientific discoveries are taken out of their confined fields and are mobilized in other contexts - sometimes with dangerous economic or damaging political or social effects - is the province of the humanities, not the sciences.

At precisely the point at which they seem furthest from each other, science and religion may converge, giving birth to completely new world faiths. Will people worship fanciful versions of scientific discoveries, or replace economists and politicians with scientific oligarchs? Will advanced science become mythology? Something like this happened to Darwin's Theory of Evolution when it fell in the hands of Social Darwinists. The possibility that a great expansion of a secular high tech civilization could ultimately give rise to new gods is as fascinating as it is unsettling. However, scientific and technological advances do inspire explosions in culture, as is evident with the birth of the World Wide Web. Today's press conference revealed this contrast between two paths and two worlds. The highly technical and scientific announcement was followed minute by minute online by millions of people who could not understand it. Nonetheless, they knew it was important; they knew that history had been made - and that history had suddenly changed.

3 comments:

Regardless Of Whatever Is Said By Whoever Says It -Higgs Particle YOK.

S Hawking is simply wrong. Obviously wrong.Everyone who accepts the story of the Higgs particle is simply wrong.Plain commonsense. Singularity and the Big Bang MUST have happened with the smallest base universe particles, the gravitons, that MUST be both energy and mass, even if they are inert mass just one smallest fraction of a second. All mass formats evolve from gravitons, convert into energy i.e. extricate from gravitons clusters into mass formats in motion, energy, and end up finally as mass again in a repeat singularity. Universe expansion and re-contraction proceed simultaneously..

Regardless Of Whatever Is Said By Whoever Says It -Higgs Particle YOK.

S Hawking is simply wrong in accepting it. Obviously wrong.Everyone who accepts the story of the Higgs particle is simply wrong.Plain commonsense. Singularity and the Big Bang MUST have happened with the smallest base universe particles, the gravitons, that MUST be both energy and mass, even if they are inert mass just one smallest fraction of a second at singularity. All mass formats evolve from gravitons that convert into energy i.e. extricate from their gravitons clusters into mass formats in motion, energy. And they all end up again as mass in a repeat singularity. Universe expansion and re-contraction proceed simultaneously..

It takes a change of culture, of the mode of reactions to circumstances, to effect a change of habit. Genetics is the progeny of culture, not vice versa. This applies in ALL fields of human activities, including economy, to ALL personal and social behavioral aspects.

Since the early 1900’s ALL “science” has been taken over by the Technology Culture of the religious Americans, represented by the trade-union-church AAAS. Plain and simple. There has not been any science in the world since then except “religious-American-science”.

On the blissful religious science ignorance…:

USA-World Science Hegemony Is Science Blind

Since the early 2000s I have been posting many articles on science items surveyed and analyzed by me, without religious background-concepts. I have been doing this because I was deeply disturbed by the religiosity of the 1848-founded AAAS trade-union and by the consequent religious background-tint of its extensive “scientific” publications and activities.

On my next birthday I’ll be 88-yrs old. I know that I’m deeply engaged in a Don Quixotic mission-war to extricate-free the USA and world Science from the clutches and consequences of the religious-trade-union-church AAAS, adopted strangely by the majority of scientifically ignorant religious god-trusting Americans and by their most other humanity following flocks…

But I am sincerely confident that only thus it is feasible and possible to embark on a new, rational, Human culture (Scientism) and on new more beneficial and effective technology courses for humanity…

About Me

Welcome to my blog, dedicated to the aporia, anomie, mysteries, and nervous tensions of the turn of the Millennium. I'm a writer and academic, trained in the field of history. These are my histories of things that define the spirit of our times. This blog also goes beyond historians' visions of the past, and examines how metatime and time are perceived in other media and disciplines, between generations, and in high and pop culture.